


Reflections

by Echodoki



Series: Coffee-fueled plot bunnies [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Author knows nothing about alchemy, Cliche, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Magic Mirrors, Trying to fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-19 01:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7339003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Echodoki/pseuds/Echodoki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom Riddle looks into the mirror, he sees a boy with messy black hair and brilliant green eyes looking back at him in horror.</p><p>“Hello.”</p><p>He smiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reflections

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on a draft I wrote in the exam week, fueled by too little sleep and too much coffee. I was clearing my notes and saw the draft I wrote and thought, huh, this is actually not too bad an idea.  
> I've only got two chapters planned out, and I'm still trying to recall what I wanted to write two months ago, so if you see any logical inconsistency, this is the reason why.  
> Hopefully it will get better.  
> You've been warned, enjoy.

Harry Potter is a normal child, or at least he tried very hard to be one. His uncle and aunt just wouldn’t tolerate anything less. 

Harry Potter is a normal child, except for his dead parents, and maybe the fact that nobody wants to be his friend. Or it’s probably because nobody dares, with a Dudley proclaiming to beat anyone who dares to talk to his “freak cousin”.

Harry Potter is a normal child, and like every normal kid, he longs for a friend to hang out with after school. Sadly the closest thing he could get is the kind old lady at the library who would smile at him and give him a cup of hot cocoa in cold winter days.

Harry Potter is a normal child, and he sincerely believes that if he makes a wish on his birthday the wish will come true. 

So Harry Potter draws a cake on the ground outside a playground Dudley never goes to with a chalk stolen from the classroom, he draws seven candles and closes his eyes.

“I wish for a friend, someone who won’t run away from me, someone who won’t be scared away by Dudley, who will understand me and be nice to me, someone I can talk to and will talk to me.”

Harry blows out towards the ground and smiles.

\---***---***---

Tom Riddle loves reading, because books contain great knowledge that can make him strong, interestingly vicious spells he can never thought of to cast on some stupid Gryffindors, secret potions that can rewrite the rules of magic, and complex runes he can tweak with to make the impossibles come true.

Tom Riddle loves reading, because books are so much more entertaining than interpersonal relationships. 

“I just wish I can have a friend who will not bother me when I’m studying, who ask for nothing but friendship alone, who will understand that I just need to be left alone sometimes, but will be there for me when I need him to be.”

Tom smiles at a third year Slytherin girl, and a fourth year Ravenclaw boy, and some more start to gather around him. Damn, he really wants to finish this book on magical mirrors. But this is the price of the network he built for himself, he will never be left alone by these annoying students with their childish dreams and course of actions who want to be a part of his “grand plan of the future of the wizard world”.

It is a price he is willing to pay.

Besides, he’s got only one more year to be surrounded by these annoyance. He can endure a year of sufferance. 

\---***---***---

“Boy! It’s already seven! Where the fuck is our breakfast? Get up you lazy arse!”

“Sorry uncle, yes uncle, the breakfast will be ready in five!”

“It better be! I have a conference this morning, and if I’m late because of your laziness, you’d wish you are never born!”

“Sorry uncle, the food is coming.”

It’s late in October, and the weather is strangely warm for this time of the year. The sun is shining in the blue sky, without any cloud obscuring its blinding light. It’s a Thursday, and just another day of housework-school-housework for him.

The one good thing this morning is that Dudley is sleeping in today, and thus not disrupting his breakfast making.

‘Should have wished for a year of better mood for uncle Vernon. He is getting more and more impatient everyday.’ Thought Harry: ‘but it’s not like the wish can come true anyway, it’s all a pitiful lie for the younger kids.’

It’s not like he doesn’t know, it’s just he really really, really want a friend for himself.

“Get yourself ready for school, boy! Look at your messy hair, you are embarrassing Dudley!”

Harry did not have enough sleep last night to deal with his aunt’s shriek, but what can he do? He will just have to deal with it. And maybe pray to Jesus that he will help her soul to find peace, on his second thought, please help his entire family find peace, he can really do with a day without being yelled at.

“Sorry aunt Petunia. I will go immediately.”

“Mom can I not go to school please please please? It’s so early!”

He doesn’t hate his cousin, no he doesn’t. But he sometimes, most of the time, is a damned annoying brat. For heaven’s sake he is seven already, he is a big boy, but no, he is such a baby sometimes. Not that he will say these thoughts out loud. He likes living.

Harry stares at his reflection in the mirror, looking at his ghastly pale skin and unnaturally green eyes, and put on his thick glasses.

Maybe he should ask Santa for a friend this year. Santa must be real, Dudley gets Santa’s gift every year. Even he got a match box last year. Santa must be real.

\---***---***---

Tom Riddle slams the door close, and falls face first into his bed.

He is wrong.

He can’t endure these annoyance any longer.

For fuck’s sake he couldn’t even finish his book in peace! It’s been three months and he’s still only two hundred pages into this book on magical mirror!

And it seems he’s not likely to finish it before Christmas either.

He debated whether to accept Malfoy’s invitation to the Yule ball, and decided he truly needs a break from all these madness. He somehow regretted a little for all the build up for his scheme of his own organization. Maybe he is not the leader type.

He pushed down that thought. He has gone too far to regret it. And he loves being in charge, he needs that power, he has to feel the power. He will never be weak again.

But it’s just one Christmas, it’s not like he can build himself an empire in two weeks’ time! Well technically he can with magic, just the physical structures of a city at least. His point is, he thinks he will snap sometimes in the next few weeks if he doesn’t take a break from this.

And he really really want to finish this book on magical mirrors.

\---***---***---

“Dear Santa, I’ve been a good boy this year. I really have. Can you please give me a friend as a Christmas gift maybe? Thank you.”

Harry knelt in front of the window in the cold wash of December moon light. It’s one week from Christmas, and he finally finished decorating the living room according to his aunt’s will.

It is almost midnight, and the house has all fallen asleep, it is just him and the last of the flickering flame in the fireplace. His cupboard is a little damp from the Pepsi incident last week, Dudley was very satisfied with his prank and uncle Vernon was very proud of his son’s wit. 

Poor him has to sleep in that sticky and stinky blanket but he is not complaining. It wouldn’t do to be ungrateful for being provided with food and shelter. Or something like that. According to aunt Petunia. 

He just washed his blanket and scrubbed the cupboard this afternoon when the household left to go shopping for Christmas gifts, he wasn’t able to dry the blanket properly because he dared not leave the drier hot when his aunt came back. In consequence he wasn’t able to finish the decorating before dinner, and he had to do with another day of hunger for being lazy and useless, but he thinks to have his cupboard clean and liveable is well worth it.

Maybe he can sleep by the fire tonight.

\---***---***---

“Silver to show the heart’s desire, mercury to connect my will to magic, antimony to stabilize, gold to perfect, tin to grant wisdom.”

It’s a surprisingly simple combination for something so incredible like this. 

Tom looks at the magic circle in the middle of the secret chamber - it is exactly one meter in diameter, five metal elements sitting in a pentagon, with a few repeating symbols outlining the circle. A copper round mirror sits in the exact centre of the circle, focusing the power from all five points.

This is not the most complex magic circle he's seen, in fact he has done alchemy more elaborate than this in his fifth year.

And this, is why you read.

Tom looks down at the book in his hand, he finally finished it on Christmas eve. He thinks back to the scriptures in the very last chapter of this book, of a legend of “spirit of the mirror”, “the man in mirror”, and different understanding of the well known story of Snow White. 

And several theoretical combinations of symbols to create the magic mirror - a reflection of your deepest inner desire, a figure that you sincerely need, a mind created by magic and fueled by the creator's love, to be a friend for your own, ears that will listen to you no matter when or where, tongue that will not betray the master but can weave such beautiful sentences to be the second half of a conversation much needed. 

A friend that will always be there when needed, and never in his way when he’s busy, a companionship belongs to him only.

Tom puts his hand on the ground, magic pulsing out into the lines and curves of the runes.

He wants, and he shall receive.


End file.
